The present invention relates to a maintenance cartridge suitable for use in an ink jet recording apparatus, in which an ink cartridge is mounted on a carriage having a recording head, for performing a recording operation while ink is supplied from the ink cartridge.
In an ink jet recording apparatus in which an ink cartridge is mounted on a carriage having a recording head, the recording head is filled with maintenance liquid in a factory-set state so as to prevent the recording head from drying.
To maintain the quantity of this maintenance liquid until ink is filled in the recording apparatus and used for printing, liquid having an evaporation rate set as low as possible, that is, high viscosity liquid is employed as this maintenance liquid.
It is thus necessary to replace the maintenance liquid with ink by supplying a sufficient quantity of ink from the initially mounted ink cartridge to the recording head. Therefore, the apparatus has encountered a problem that an amount of consumed ink at the initial filling of the recording head is large, while an amount of printed ink at the time of using the initially mounted ink cartridge is extremely small.
The invention is accomplished in view of such a problem. Accordingly, an object of the invention is to provide a maintenance cartridge enabled to use maintenance liquid, which can easily be replaced with ink, and to reduce an amount of necessary maintenance liquid.
Further, another object of the invention is to provide a maintenance cartridge enabled to properly control an operation of filling a recording head with ink from an ink cartridge and an ink discharging operation to be performed to solve a clogged-up condition of nozzle openings when the maintenance cartridge is mounted in a recording apparatus.
Moreover, still another object of the invention is to provide a recording apparatus enabled to properly control an operation of solving a clogged-up condition of nozzle openings when a maintenance cartridge is mounted therein, and an ink filling operation to be performed when the maintenance cartridge is replaced with an ink cartridge.
To solve such a problem, according to an aspect of the invention, there is provided a maintenance cartridge that comprises a main body shaped in such a manner as to be enabled to be mounted at the same position as the position, at which an ink cartridge is to be mounted, in a recording apparatus, and a plug element, which is provided in a region corresponding to an ink supply port of the ink cartridge, for sealing an ink supply needle that supplies ink to an ink jet recording head.
When the maintenance cartridge is mounted, the ink supply needle is shut off from the air. Thus, an amount of maintenance liquid is maintained regardless of the volatility thereof. Further, the maintenance cartridge is easily removed by being operated similarly as in the case of removing the ordinary ink cartridge, so that the ink cartridge can be mounted in the recording apparatus.
The present disclosure relates to the subject matter contained in Japanese patent application Nos. 2000-198671 (filed on Jun. 30, 2000), and 2001-184544 (filed on Jun. 19, 2001), which are expressly incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.